McLellan’s plans for Setoguchi, the rough treatment Thornton got in Edmonton –and more

VANCOUVER — Devin Setoguchi indeed will be back in the lineup tonight and he’ll be on the fourth line with Torrey Mitchell and Frazer McLaren.

In fact, Todd McLellan talked this morning about how he may have erred the last time Setoguchi came back from an injury by throwing him right back on the top line instead of easing him into things.

And how he doesn’t want to that again with either Setoguchi or Torrey Mitchell.

“We have two players who haven’t played a lot lately, Torrey Mitchell and Devin Setoguchi, on one line,” he said. “We’ll treat them similarly to try and get them going again before we put a lot of pressure on them.

“I felt the first time we brought Devin back, I perhaps made that mistake, we just rewarded him with his customary position. This time through he’s going to have to work his way up,” the coach added.

Setoguchi’s return, of course, does give McLellan a lot of options and some interesting decisions to make. In theory, when Setoguchi is ready for Big Six minutes, Manny Malhotra returns to the third line.

Does he simply replace Jamie McGinn, who’s been a ball of energy out there? Does Mitchell work his way up to the third line, where he was penciled in at the start of the season? Does that push Scott Nichol back to the fourth line, even though he’s been doing really well where he is now? The reality is, McLellan should have a lot of interchangeable parts to work with on third and fourth lines that are doing pretty well just as they are now.

Anyway, it was an optional skate this morning, so there wasn’t a chance to observe line rushes, but it should go like this tonight against the Canucks:

Heatley-Thornton-Marleau

Clowe-Pavelski-Malhotra

Ortmeyer-Nichol-McGinn

McLaren-Mitchell-Setoguchi

Blake-Vlasic

Boyle-Murray

Huskins-Joslin

Nabokov

******McLellan was asked this morning whether he thought his team should have responded in some way when Edmonton’s J.F. Jacques played a little rough with Joe Thornton in the third period of Friday night’s game.

“I very much do,” McLellan said. “I think there’s two ways of doing that and one of them we accomplished. We went out and scored a couple of goals that put them on their heels and we ended up winning the game.

“The other one can be a physical response, whether it’s with the individual or some of our other players getting physically active with some of their elite palyers,” he added. “We took care of it one area. I don’t know if we had the opportunity to take care of it the other way.”

“We have to be careful because the win supercedes everything else,” McLellan said. “You play against teams a numer of times. You can respond later on if you have to.”

*****Responding to a question, McLellan took a little jibe at the performance of his top power play unit of Thornton-Heatley-Marleau, describing their effort as “looking good and doing nothing.”

“We used the word Globertrotters a little bit,” the coach said. “There has to be substance on the power play. The goal is to put it in the net. If it never gets to the net, the goalie just sits there and he doesn’t have to be their best penalty killer. We can’t have that.

“The other unit,” he added, “which seems to be more of a grunt unit, simplifies things and gets it to the net.”

*****I did talk to Christian Ehrhoff and some of the Sharks about playing against him tonight, but that’ll have to wait for the print edition. The parking meter outside GM Place is about to expire and neither I nor the boss wants to deal with the consequences of a ticket.

Maybe time for one quote. I asked Ehrhoff if Roberto Luongo talked to his defensemen as much as Evgeni Nabokov does.

“He doesn’t yell as much as Nabby does,” a smiling Ehrhoff said, “but he talks to us.”

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

The Sharks don’t play on December 2nd…..I’m sure you mean January 2nd when Edmonton comes to the tank.

Teejay

Andrew:

How can you say that Huskins is a great player? Last night he refused to shoot when a pass came his way. He kept passing it back and forth until the Sharks turned it over.

And how many give away’s did Huskins have? Nice guy? Maybe. Good hockey player? NAH.

Teejay

Call this eating crow if you wish.

Last week I posted that I have serious reservations about the two Canadian games coming up. Well, 4 out of 4 points ain’t too bad.

Clowe is coming on real well. I’d like to see Heater turn it up a notch or two. And of course Mitchell and Seto need to get re-acclimated. Once the Sharks get clicking on all cylingers, they’ll be tough to beat.

andy

DP
How about a post regarding the selection of games for HD? Maybe a good subject for a “print article”.
Andy